Contents

Alphabet

The base alphabet consists of 21 letters: five vowels (A, E, I, O U) and 16 consonants. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the proper alphabet, and appear only in loanwords[1] (e.g., 'jeans'), foreign names, and in a handful of native words—such as the names Jesolo, Bettino Craxi, and Walter, which all derive from regional languages. In addition, grave, acute and circumflex accents may modify vowel letters.

Vowels

The Italian alphabet has five vowel letters, ⟨a e i o u⟩. Of those, only ⟨a⟩ represents one sound value while each of the others has two. In addition, ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩ indicate a different pronunciation of a preceding ⟨c⟩ or ⟨g⟩ (see below).

In stressedsyllables, ⟨e⟩ represents both open/ɛ/ and close/e/. Similarly, ⟨o⟩ represents both open /ɔ/ and close /o/ (see the Italian phonology for further details on these sounds). There is typically no orthographic distinction between the open and closed sounds represented, though accent marks are used in certain instances (see below). In unstressed syllables, only the close variants occur.

C and G

Normally, ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ represent the plosives /k/ and /ɡ/, respectively, unless they precede a front vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩) when they represent the affricates /tʃ/ (like English ch) and /dʒ/ (like English j).

The letter ⟨i⟩ can also function merely as an indicator that the preceding ⟨c⟩ or ⟨g⟩ is soft, e.g. cia (/tʃa/), giu (/dʒu/). When the hard pronunciation occurs before a front vowel, digraphs ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ are used, so that ⟨che⟩ represents /ke/ or /kɛ/ and ⟨chi⟩ represents /ki/ or /kj/. In the evolution of the Latin language, the postalveolar affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ were contextual variants of the velar consonants/k/ and /ɡ/. They eventually came to be full phonemes, and the said orthographic practice was introduced to distinguish them. The phonemicity of the affricates can be demonstrated with the minimal pairs:

The trigraphs ⟨cch⟩ and ⟨ggh⟩ are used to indicate geminated/k/ and /ɡ/, respectively, when they occur before ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩; e.g. occhi/ˈɔkki/ ('eyes'), agghindare/aɡɡinˈdare/ ('to dress up').

⟨G⟩ is also used to mark that a following ⟨l⟩ or ⟨n⟩ is palatal, i.e. /ʎ/ (only before ⟨i⟩) or /ɲ/ (everywhere), respectively (this is not true in words derived from Greek, where ⟨gl⟩ is a plain /ɡl/, like in glicine, 'wisteria').

The digraph ⟨sc⟩ is used before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩ to represent /ʃ/; before other vowels, ⟨sci⟩ is used. Otherwise, ⟨sc⟩ represents /sk/, the ⟨c⟩ of which follows the normal orthographic rules explained above.

It can be either voiceless or voiced (/s/ or /z/) between vowels; in standard Tuscany-based pronunciation some words are pronounced with /s/ between vowels (e.g. casa, cosa, così, mese, naso, peso, cinese, piemontese, goloso); in Northern Italy (and also increasingly in Tuscany) ⟨s⟩ between vowels is always pronounced with /z/ (with some exceptions[example needed]) whereas in Southern Italy ⟨s⟩ between vowels is always pronounced /s/.

Other letters

In addition to being used to indicate a hard ⟨c⟩ or ⟨g⟩ before front vowels, ⟨h⟩ is also used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the', m. pl.), a ('to'), anno ('year'); since ⟨h⟩ is always silent, there is no difference in the pronunciation of such words. In loanwords such as hovercraft/ˈɔverkraft/, the h is still silent.

Diacritics

The acute accent may be used on ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ to represent close-mid vowels when they are stressed in a position other than the default second-to-lastsyllable. This use of accents is generally mandatory only in the final syllable; elsewhere, accents are generally found only in dictionaries. Since final ⟨o⟩ is hardly ever close-mid, ⟨ó⟩ is very rarely encountered in written Italian (e.g. metró 'subway', from the original French pronunciation of métro with a final-stressed /o/). The grave accent may be used on ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ when they represent open-mid vowels. The accents may also be used to differentiate minimal pairs within Italian (for example pèsca 'peach' vs. pésca 'fishing'), but in practice this is limited to didactic texts. In the case of final ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩, both possibilities are encountered. The by far most common option is the grave accent, though this may be due to the rarity of the acute accent to represent stress; the alternative of employing the acute is in practice limited to erudite texts, but can be justified as both vowels are high (as in Catalan). However, since there are no corresponding low (or lax) vowels to contrast with in Italian, both choices are equally acceptable.

The circumflex accent can be used to mark the contraction of two vowels, especially two i's. For example, it can be used to differentiate words like geni ('genes', plural of gene) and genî ('geniuses', plural of genio). This is especially seen in older texts, since two homophones are usually distinguished by the context.